What does it take nowadays to be insane?

What about Daumer? Don't you have to wonder about a state in which someone who kills loads of people and keeps them in the fridge for munchies and the court says, nope, not insane, seems perfectly reasonable behaviour to me. I'd hate to meet the real loons in that state.

Favorite news stories of the week: mad cows and Englishmen (yes you have less chance of catching mad cow disease from a Wimpyburger than of winning the lottery, but have you noticed how popular the lottery is?); the rise in cannibalism in Russia; the report that the Federal Reserve is horribly mismanaging its own budget; the 58-yr old black female cashier of the Senate coffee shop fired for calling her customers baby, sweetheart, and such, a complaint being filed by an aide to...Mitch McConnell. Sonny (I got you, babe) Bono is running scared.

After vituperating at President Lee for months, China is now suggesting that his reelection is a vindication of the one-China policy, so they've won anyway. Speaking of political reality, some of the op-ed pieces in the NY Times calling on Lee to accommodate China more, and coming from good liberals like Thomas Friedman and I think Anthony Lake and the Times itself, sound an awful like the advice the west offered Czechoslovakia in 1938.

Speaking of which, Germany recently refused to acknowledge that the Munich agreement of 1938 was illegal.

Sorry, this was a NY case, so I guess it gets more coverage there, though I thought of it as a national story. A judge excluded a trunkfull of cocaine and heroine saying that the police did not have reasonable cause to pull over a car that a bunch of men were putting bags into the trunk of at 5 in the morning, and that since Washington Heights police were known to be thugs (which is very true), it was not unreasonable for the men to run away. Not surprisingly, a lot of ink has been spilled over this case the last month. The judge is Harold Baer, Southern District of NY, appointed by Clinton 1994, and Clinton just ordered him to reverse himself or resign (not that Clinton can make him, of course), since Republicans intend to go after him on his judicial appointments. Newt demanded that Clinton ask for the resignation, Dole has been mentioning it. All this including the Clinton threat comes in advance of a rehearing. Mike McCurry is going after Reagan and Bush judges as being
too soft on crime (the judges who struck down Megan's law, the SF judge who wants drugs legalized....)

Incidentally, Pataki removed a Bronx district attorney for refusing to act within his discretion to ask for the death penalty for a man who killed a cop.

Another month, another proposed constitutional amendment from the
Republicans. I know the constitution isn't etched in stone, but on an etch-a-sketch?

Now even Fed Courts of Appeal can ignore the Supreme Court and set their own affirmative action policy, so why don't you try to persuade the 9th district to follow the 5th?

What must John Gummer be thinking today, the former British Agriculture Minister who fed his 4-year old daughter a hamburger on national tv to prove that British beef was safe despite the mad cow disease.

The House voted to let states deny public education to children of illegal immigrants, including those born in the US (the latter by a vote of 269-151, actually higher than for the bill as a whole), proving that they too can ignore the Supreme Court.

A Texas grand jury decides that a man taking advantage of the new
concealed weapons law to settle a traffic accident dispute with extreme prejudice was within his rights. Not even a trial.

In Berkeley I saw a sign for a candidate for Assembly who proposes to abolish the IRS.

I've been trying to pick someone for superior court judge from the meaningless candidate statements. So I'm asking myself whether the one whose law degree came from Catholic University Columbus School of Law would be against the death penalty. I may wind up voting for the one I know was a defense attorney, who still somehow tries to fool the death penalty voters by noting that "My last case before taking the bench was a death penalty jury trial." I can see a thousand voters underlining death
penalty with highlight markers and voting for him. My mother says she has someone who brags that as a judge he saved taxpayer money by sentencing people at the prelims. Um, doesn't that mean he just ratified plea agreements, or is this some new thing implemented by Dan Lungren to eliminate juries. In LA, you could see how that might be popular. I personally blame whatever consultant took the Menendez brothers out of their cable-knit sweaters and into suits and ties for their conviction.

I've decided to vote in favor of giving unemployment insurance to prisoners.

Maybe we could send our mountain lions to Australia and thus solve our lion problem and their koala problem at the same time?

An alternate juror in the Whitewater case was expelled, not because she'd worn her home-made Star Trek uniform to court every day, but for talking to TV about it. She evidently wears it to all formal occasions.

Thu, 7 Mar 1996

The Village Voice, commenting on a Forbes reference to the liberal media distorting his flat tax idea, notes that of the remaining candidates, Keyes and Dornan are radio hosts, Buchanan is a columnist and is on CNN, and Forbes owns a multibillion dollar media empire.

Question I'd have liked to hear someone ask Dole when he was posing with George Bush yesterday: "So, is he lying about your record now?"

Buchanan says that he will look like something out of Deliverance...

Yesterday I found the lock-picking web-site and Dave's Web of Lies, on which everything is guaranteed to be inaccurate.

Today I have found "Dave's Web of Lies" on which everything is guaranteed to be false, and the Web-site containing a guide to lock-picking. Contrary to my assumption that the latter would turn out to be a joke, it does indeed seem to be a guide to lock-picking. Just in case you were looking for a new career.

I have also been running into problems relating to the Web-browser I am using more frequently today than is usual. When you choose an option from the British comedian/actor/writer/show-off's home page called Instant Orgasm, and the result is a message that this cannot be displayed on your screen, well, disappointment hardly begins to describe it.

Former Governor Carroll Campbell of S Carolina on Lamar Alexander: "I don't think people perceive him as a fellow-Southerner. They perceive him as a nice guy."

Another great Republican debate. C'mon Dole, should a raped woman be forced to carry a pregnancy to term, or not. I understand that Dole will soon hit his legal spending limit, thanks to Forbes. Did you hear that Alan Keyes went on hunger strike to protest being left out of the debate? I knew Dick Gregory; Dick Gregory was a friend of mine... While inside, Buchanan kept trying to get everyone to join him in a chorus of
Dixie...